Under the Avalanche
by Najio
Summary: Nicholas Schnee's health may be failing—but after meeting his first granddaughter, he doesn't regret a thing. / Willow knows some things don't come back, once you let them slip away. / Jacques lives to impose order on chaos. Nothing is as chaotic as his children. / Winter learns how to fight a losing battle long before she joins Atlas Academy. / Schnee family headcanons everywhere!
1. Nicholas

**This is one of those, "I wrote this at 4am instead of sleeping" ideas. Basically just... Schnee family headcanons everywhere, feat. Grandpa Schnee's awesome scarf and my own horrified realization that I didn't know how to spell the name Nicholas.**

**For now it stands on its own, though I may come back and add some more if enough other ideas decide to set the tattered remains of my sleep cycle on fire.**

**I already smell smoke.**

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**Nicholas**

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Few could fill a room as thoroughly as Nicholas Schnee in his prime. He was a big man, tall and broad at the shoulder, with a Huntsman's muscle and easy grace. A man of booming laughs and broad smiles and friendly claps on the back.

The laughs fade first. They break into fits of coughing, while he waves a dismissive hand and grumbles that it's nothing more than a cold. A persistent cold. A cold that leaves a sharp pain in his chest that steals his sleep.

He knows. He's helped set up the new safety equipment, machines they didn't have in his day that keep the Dust from getting into the miners' lungs. Willow knows too, and eventually he gives up the facade with a tired smile. "I'm not long for this world, my dear." He touches the swell of her belly. "But I think I'll stay long enough to meet my grandchild."

Willow is exhausted after the delivery, so it's her husband who brings the baby to meet him. Nicholas is in bed, sitting up against a stack of pillows, his red scarf wound about his neck. "Ah," he breathes, his voice hitching on another cough. "Thank you, Jacques." He cradles the infant in his arms. "What's her name?"

"Winter."

Nicholas beams at her and touches her nose lightly with his little finger. Her face wrinkles. "Winter... You know, now that I've met her... I simply must live until she opens her eyes." His gaze never leaves his granddaughter—as such, he misses the slight tightening around Jacques' mouth.

When Winter opens her eyes, Willow rushes to her father's room, dragging Jacques in her wake. The baby greets him by waving a chubby fist in his face, and for an instant his laugh is no longer a mere shadow of itself. "She looks just like you, engel." Winter reaches up and grabs a handful of his pale whiskers. "Alright, little one. I shall stay long enough to see you crawl."

He is not a big man, when Winter crawls for the first time across his bed. The corded muscle of a Huntsman has melted away. His cheeks are gaunt and the skin stretches taught against his finger bones. But his touch is soft as he steadies her, and his eyes light up with pride. "Ah... an explorer, are we?" He chuckles, and starts to cough. It goes on long enough that Willow leans forward, arms outstretched. Nicholas glances at his hand and winces. "Jacques, be a good man and hand me that handkerchief."

"Papa, maybe you should lie down."

"And deprive Winter of obstacles?" he asks, as she struggles to scale the small mountain of his knees. "Heaven forbid."

Winter coos at him, and he smirks. "If you _insist,"_ he says, "I will remain here until you are old enough to walk."

A few months later and a dozen pounds lighter, he walks with her through the garden. Nicholas moves slowly and stiffly, breathing hard as Winter toddles circles around him. He would reach out to touch her hair, but his hands are occupied with a walker. They return to the house, and cross paths with Jacques in the hall. He stares at the walker, as if he expects Nicholas to be ashamed of it.

"She will be a force to be reckoned with," he declares, nodding at his granddaughter. "Already she outruns a trained Huntsman!" His old laugh is dust in the wind, but he manages a chuckle. "I shall be content to die once she learns to read."

"You always say that," Jacques says, his tone all light amusement, "yet here you are. At this rate you'll outlive us all." He turns his head so that only Winter sees his nostrils flare—she doesn't understand what it means, and will not remember.

It's Nicholas who teaches Winter to read. He can't walk with her in the garden anymore, so she sits beside him on his bed and holds open a book. She leans close, because he cannot speak above a whisper, and sometimes he points out words on the pages and tells her to remember them.

"This one is important," he says, underlining it with his finger, "because it's your name."

"Why's my name in the book?"

"Winter is also a season, my dear. The one where it snows."

She squints at him. "Isn't that all of them?"

Nicholas laughs too hard and has to cough for a long time. Winter dutifully hands him a handkerchief, and when he is finished he folds it neatly and tucks it into his breast pocket, out of sight. "You've lived in the north too long."

"Is winter bad?"

"No." He lifts his hand, with some effort, and pats her head. "Winter is strong and fierce—and there is softness in it, if you know where to look."

Months pass. His voice starts to fail him, so Winter reads to him instead. She stumbles over the words. He smiles and corrects her gently. Her books are much shorter than his, but he gets tired quickly, so perhaps this is for the best.

One afternoon, after a book about a hungry inchworm, he touches her shoulder and whispers, "Come back at midnight."

She is puzzled, but she does as he asks. His room is dark when she enters, and he is asleep. She hesitates, because Willow has warned her not to wake him, but he asked her to be there. So she reaches out and touches his hand. His eyes open and he says, "Open the blinds."

Winter pulls them wide. Outside, the sky is hung with glowing green curtains and ribbons of bright magenta. She sucks in a breath. When she looks at Nicholas, he pats the bed beside him. They watch the lights together. She falls asleep curled in the crook of his arm.

He lets out a long, contented sigh. "Now would be the time," he murmurs. "But I couldn't do that to you." Ah, well. He would just have to stay until she beat him at chess.

Willow's second daughter is, if anything, even harder on her, and leaves her bedridden for several days. Jacques carries the baby to meet her grandfather with Winter at his heels. Nicholas is so pale that he blends in with the sheets, and she can count the veins webbing his hands. There is an oxygen tube in his nose. He shouldn't sit up, but he insists that Jacques help him so that he can hold the new baby.

"Her name is Weiss," Winter tells him. Nicholas strokes the baby's fuzzy head for a minute before he has to return her to her father—his arms are shaking and she can't hold her own head up yet.

"Look... what you've done," he croaks, grinning at Jacques. "Now I'll have to stay... until she learns to talk." He beckons, and her father holds her close enough for Nicholas to stroke her cheek. "She has... _words _for us... I can tell."

A year and a half later, she still hasn't spoken. Jacques brings her to Nicholas while Winter is in lessons, and stands for a long moment in the doorway. Watching.

"So much for your prediction," he says. It's meant to be a joke, but there is a coldness in his eyes that Nicholas hasn't seen before. That no one has been allowed to see, until now. Jacques places Weiss on the floor. She stands at his feet, staring up at her grandfather with wide eyes.

Nicholas wants to say that she will, that she is just waiting—but the only sound he can make now is a quiet wheezing as he breathes. Weiss toddles up to him and grabs his little finger in one fist. The corners of his mouth curve upward. He tries to draw her closer, but his arm only twitches. Jacques watches him. Calculating.

"Weiss," he says, and she turns obediently to face him. "Come. Let your grandfather rest."

Winter stops visiting him. It takes a long time to communicate his question to his nurse—the man tells him that his granddaughter has been in lessons. Nicholas grips his arm with more strength than he's managed to summon in almost a year. Slowly, painstakingly, he blinks his way through more questions. He asks when the lessons start and end. He asks about weekends. He asks if his daughter knows about this. He demands to see Jacques.

His son in law comes three days later. He stands at the foot of the bed and says nothing. Nicholas tries to order him to change Winter's schedule. He saw her yesterday, her shoulders tight with newfound anxiety. She is only six. Far too young to be worked around the clock like this. He tries to tell Jacques as much.

The man gives him a bland smile and pretends not to notice his blinking. Weak and shrunken, his voice withered up inside him, Nicholas cannot clench his fists or his jaw. He cannot bellow. Only his eyes show his hatred.

When he dies, Winter is in her lessons and has not seen him for several days. His funeral is a strange affair—it marks the last time that the upper crust of Atlas will mix so thoroughly with grizzled old Hunters and faunus miners, and it is fraught with tensions that will haunt the company for decades to come. Nicholas would be bitterly disappointed to learn that it takes place on a bright, sunny day, without even a hint of snowfall. He is buried with the red scarf that he wanted to leave to one of his granddaughters.

Several weeks later, Weiss says her first word. "No." There are many more to follow.


	2. Willow

**Welp. I guess this is a thing I'm doing now! I've got another half segment written already, so there will probably be at least one more after this one. Let's see how many of these I end up writing before I get completely jossed!**

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**Willow**

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Willow Schnee believes in unconditional love. Lovers moving mountains, parting seas, and crossing hundreds of Grimm-infested miles to find one another again. Bonds that endure beyond death itself. Something pure, beautiful, and permanent.

She isn't sure why the idea appeals to her the way it does—she's never seen that kind of romance, or any romance at all. Her mother died when she was too young to remember, and her papa has no interest in remarrying.

Perhaps that's it. She's only ever seen the kind of love a parent has for his child. This is the metric by which she judges all relationships. Most fall alarmingly short, but she doesn't give up. Through disappointment after disappointment, Willow waits patiently to be swept off her feet—and wears her lofty expectations like golden weights around her ankles.

Jacques Gelé is undeterred. They meet, not in some stuffy high society party, but in the streets of Atlas. Kismet, she thinks. He knows otherwise. She is afraid her papa won't approve of a boy with little money and no connections. Their budding love story stays a secret for six months, until Nicholas catches Jacques halfway through Willow's window. He tips his head back and laughs.

The romance resumes somewhat sheepishly, this time through the front door. Nicholas never misses an opportunity to tease the pair of them. Willow giggles. Jacques does not.

They marry. Jacques apologizes for the ring, though he's sold everything he has to pay for it. (The investment brings excellent returns.) Willow finds the whole affair slightly anticlimactic, at first—the only big change is that he moves in with her and papa. (He is also a Schnee, now, but this is unimportant to her.)

Then she wakes up to find that he's brought her breakfast. They take long walks around the manor, his arm in hers. He's always been an excellent listener, and she finds herself telling him what she's thinking even as the thoughts are forming. Marriage has made him kinder and more attentive, which she hadn't even thought was possible. An unacknowledged fear eases. When he brings up the possibility of children, she thinks this must be it—the way life was always meant to be.

Papa gets sick. Doctors tell her he'll be lucky to last the year, so of course he's still alive and kicking after six. It hurts watching him fade away, and sometimes Willow wonders if it's harder like this, more drawn out—but then she sees Winter asleep in the crook of his arm, or Weiss tugging on one of his hands, and she's glad he's such a stubborn old goat. It will be alright. He's told her so, his bony hands held gently in hers. She has Jacques. She has the children. Life is good, even if it has to end.

When he passes, her husband goes with him.

Grief, she thinks at first, but Jacques wasn't that close with papa. Maybe it's her. She's been listless, lately, and perhaps he feels ignored. She tries to do better. It doesn't work.

It wouldn't be so bad, if it was only the husband who changed—the father is different, too. Winter picks at the beds of her nails and carries new tension in her shoulders. Weiss starts turning up in odd places, crammed into crawlspaces or wedged under desks in forgotten rooms. Willow asks why. Winter won't answer, and Weiss is too young to put it into words. They cling to her, and she soothes them.

She talks to Jacques. It doesn't help. He's changing, and it shouldn't matter—love is meant to be unconditional—but it does. She keeps trying to bridge this strange gap that's grown up between them, with increasing desperation.

Desperation becomes Whitley. He's a shock after the girls—it's over so quickly, and afterwards she can sit up and hold him. He's quieter when he cries, and his head smells nice, but he can't change the fact that her husband has turned into a stranger. The divide is still there, growing larger, and she has to do something about Winter. There are scabs at her fingertips, and she picks at her food.

She goes to Jacques. She doesn't mean for it to turn into a shouting match, but somehow she leaves with her throat raw. He doesn't listen, and nothing changes. So she fights him tooth and nail until she's exhausted. It gets a little better for her daughters. A lot worse for her.

Willow has nightmares about unconditional love. She wakes up in a cold sweat, with Jacques already gone. She thinks she should find him, talk to him so that he knows she's still there for him. That she'll keep reaching until he's ready to reach back.

She stays in bed. As she stares at the ceiling, she notices for the first time the sick weight leeching into her veins. She doesn't know how long it's been there. It's so gradual she hardly notices, until suddenly it's too much and she just _can't._

Once she realizes, she tries to rouse herself—but it's so much harder to get back what she lost than it was to let it slip away. Like trying to climb a steep hill in pouring rain. Soon she gives up hope of reaching the top. It's all she can do to hold on, and she _needs _to hold on. The man she loves is in there, somewhere, and she will not abandon him.

Winter gets into a shouting match with her father. It happens at dinner, in front of the younger ones. Worse, it's _about _them. She thinks he's going too far again, and she's right—they're starting to act like she did when she was young. Too much pressure. Weiss watches the argument unfold with wide eyes, while Whitley hunches down in his seat and tries to hide.

Willow meets her daughter's eyes. Winter is waiting for her to say something. She knows she should... but she's just so tired. The silence stretches.

They're forces of nature, her husband and her eldest daughter. Willow tries to reach them, over and over, and it _hurts, _and they pull her in opposite directions until something breaks. She tries to piece it back together again, but it's too late. It takes hours to drag herself out of bed. Winter hardly looks at her, and when she does, Willow has to look away. She can't stand seeing his cold fury in her little girl's eyes.

It's already started with Weiss—endless singing lessons and concerts that leave her shaking with suppressed stage fright. Willow tries to reach her, but the weight's sunk into her bones now. They're token attempts. Useless.

Weiss turns ten. Willow fights with her husband for the last time, and he snaps. There's something alien there, that shows in the instant before he says it. An emptiness that only she has ever been allowed to see. (Nicholas saw it, too late.) It makes her feel perversely closer to him.

He never changed. This is what he always was. It should matter, but it doesn't.

It gets easier once she's given up. Days pass in a haze. She doesn't struggle to get out of bed—sometimes she doesn't even bother. Jacques finally moves into his own room nearer to his office, and she abandons all pretense and starts keeping a bottle of wine on her nightstand.

She clings to Whitley, and lets him soothe her. He's six, now, and she can already sense Jacques' fingerprints on him, but he's still the sweet child she held as a baby. Still _hers._ He's all that's left, and she knows that won't last long.

Years pass. Winter leaves, and Weiss and Whitley quietly fall apart. They are angry so they don't have to admit that it hurts.

Whitley pulls away from her. Willow blames Jacques, because she no longer notices the sourness of her breath or the wobble in her step. She wanders the halls of the manor like a ghost, searching in a grey haze for a door that would lead to her childhood bedroom.

Her lucid moments are few and far between. She prefers it that way. But they do happen, and one foggy winter morning she walks down the main hall feeling painfully clear-headed. The head butler passes her. She stops, calls out to him. She doesn't remember his name. He smiles politely anyway.

"I'd like some of the Vacuan red, if you would."

He informs her gently that he doesn't work here anymore, and is only staying on long enough to find a replacement. An unspecified family emergency. She knows from his tone that this isn't the first time he's told her.

She asks who he is considering. He's startled—she hasn't shown an interest in household affairs in a very long time. But he takes the question in stride and tells her he's on his way to give a list of candidates to Jacques.

"No."

He blinks. She takes an envelope from unresisting fingers, flips through its contents, and removes a resume.

"This one."

He glances nervously towards her husband's office. Then, slowly, he nods. "Of course, ma'am."

Klein Sieben starts work the following Monday.

He doesn't know who hired him. No one does—except the ex-butler, who moves to Mistral, and Willow. For the few hours the act stays with her, she feels a distant satisfaction. She can't be there for her children, but at least she's found someone who can.

She forgets by the next morning. It's the first good thing her daze has stolen from her in a long time.


	3. Jacques

**The jossening approaches... I'm hoping to finish the last one of these (Winter) before volume 7 drops, while it's still theorizing and guesswork and not just straight-up AU.**

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**Jacques**

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Critics of Jacques Schnee call him many things. Cold, cruel, calculating... he denies them in public, but privately he dismisses them as weak insults. He takes great pride in his calculation, and his willingness to do what is necessary has turned the SDC into the economic juggernaut it is today. They also call him uncaring—and this is entirely untrue. He cares a great deal about order, and his two greatest passions in life are the careful management of both his company and his family.

The company is easy. Even when he first takes over from Nicholas, a year into his marriage to Willow and with only eight months' experience, he finds it nearly effortless. He whispers a sweet lie into this ear, snubs that associate, streamlines mining systems where his father-in-law has allowed atrociously inefficient spending, and profits soar.

It's even easier once Nicholas finally stops defying the expectations of a small army of doctors and dies. Willow has no interest in the company, and with her father gone Jacques is free to steer it as he pleases. Competitors evaporate, the manor expands into adjacent properties, and Dust becomes synonymous with the name _Schnee._

There are hurdles, as there always are. The White Fang, most notably—a minor annoyance, until they suddenly aren't. The media, which waffled uselessly for some time, finally takes a stand against them as they graduate from useless standing around to storming into shops where they are unwelcome, stealing, and even attacking the authorities.

The Atlesian army doesn't deal with the problem. It escalates. A board member dies, and the others grow skittish. They suggest courses of action, but he has the final say—and he will not capitulate. Jacques will let the company burn before he gives the filthy creatures an inch.

It doesn't come to that. They keep making noises, but the army finally responds to the threat and, ultimately, they only scratch his profits. He grows accustomed to handling crises, and it is once again easy.

His family is never easy. Somehow, even as a pack of terrorists fails to destabilize the SDC, the most inconsequential of events sends the entire manor into disarray for days on end. The worst thing, the thing that keeps him awake at night, is that he has no heir that he can trust to manage the company once he is

He has fragments of the child he wanted. Winter is precise and disciplined, and unflinchingly loyal to the wrong man. Whitley is polite and charming and missing his spine. Weiss is the closest he has to perfect, and so he takes great pains to curate her education.

Tutors handle most of it. He selects them, and they report her progress to him. Math, Economics, Music, Dust, History, Law... but some things he prefers to handle personally.

He finds her one evening, hiding from a party in a seldom-used hallway with her arms around her knees. Crying quietly, but not silently—though not for lack of trying. There's a furrow in her brow where she's straining to hold back tears that have already fallen.

"Don't tense up like that. You'll give yourself a headache."

At the sound of his voice her head jerks up, and her eyes go wide with panic for an instant before she manages to cover the expression. _Much too slow. She ought to know better by now._

"I wasn't—"

"Never lie about the obvious," he snaps. "It only makes you look foolish."

She ducks her head, and nods.

"What are you doing here?"

"N—" She stops herself before she can say, _"Nothing."_

"Are you wasting my time?" he asks, and she shakes her head frantically. "Then tell me."

She's silent for a moment. He taps his foot against the carpet once, twice, and she blurts, "I kissed a boy."

"I see. Why are you here, crying, rather than with this... _boy."_

Weiss says nothing, and something stirs in the pit of his stomach. He taps his foot again, and she lets three go by before she answers, "It was a bet."

The sheer stupidity of it makes his lip curl. That such blundering fools exist, who would make a powerful enemy for a few lien... and that something so petty has reduced his scion to tears. Only the fact that they are both children stops him from walking away in disgust.

Instead, he looks down at her and says, "There will always be people like that. You are wealthy, powerful, and attractive—the vast majority of those who seek to court you will have... questionable motives."

She looks up, startled, and says, "Um..." He glares at her, and she closes her mouth—belatedly remembering another lesson. _Don't use fillers._

"Affection can be faked. It isn't difficult. You smile, make eye-contact, listen to what the other person says and repeat it back whenever you find the opportunity. Being good-looking helps."

Her jaw clenches, and she glares up at him. "I'll be sure not to date _leeches _in the future." He feels a hot flash of anger, and underneath

"Do," he says. "You are excused from the party until you can clean yourself up." He turns to leave, and stops. "Weiss. What was his name?" She hesitates, then gives it to him. He walks away, his heart beating uncomfortably fast.

The boy has four brothers. It's simple enough to suggest to his parents that the inheritance should be split between them. When they refuse, he ensures that there won't be any inheritance at all. It's an insult, whether or not their idiot son realizes it. Making a fool out of Weiss is an attack on Jacques, because she is _his._

Until she gets it into her head to go to Beacon, and becomes completely unmanageable. Knowing that forbidding her outright will probably backfire, he sets her a test he knows she will fail. He watches with contempt as, in a fit of reckless arrogance, she packs her bags before the trial.

She kills the Arma Gigas. A week later, she is gone.

He can't have another child. Things with Willow have deteriorated too much for that to be an option. So he steps up Whitley's education, and when his son starts to buckle under the pressure, he calls Weiss. And calls. And calls.

Cutting her off doesn't solve the problem. He should have guessed—she's always been one to dig in her heels when confronted like that. Winter is the same way. It was a mistake to let them spend so much time together as children. Just as it was a mistake to act so rashly, trying to get Weiss' attention. Clearly, something else needs to be done.

He is still pondering his next move when one of her teammates breaks a boy's leg on live television.

Another call. It, like all the others, is ignored. He decides to speak to Ozpin directly, and inform him that it is unacceptable for his daughter to be on a team with that girl. He keeps half an eye on the broadcasts, but most of his attention is on the message he is composing for the headmaster.

A girl is torn apart. He looks up, genuinely startled for the first time in decades. Watches. Deletes the message draft, and orders a private airship be prepared immediately.

By the time it lands, the situation is under control. He learns bits and pieces about what happened. Finally he corners a blue-haired boy who, when asked where his daughter is, points towards the infirmary.

She is between two beds. On one, the violent teammate sprawls on her back with one arm thrown across her stomach. The other is missing below the elbow. The occupant of the second bed, her partner, lies curled on her side. Weiss is holding one of her hands.

There are others in the room. Three of them huddle together on one bed, all crying quietly. Someone has clearly died. Possibly two someones—Weiss' third teammate is nowhere to be seen.

His daughter still hasn't noticed him. They need to leave, but Jacques stands there, silent, because she is almost unrecognizable. Her shoulders slumped, her eyes red, her knees drawn up towards her chest. She looks defeated. Something is missing, something he

"It's time to leave," he says. Her hand tightens reflexively. Her partner doesn't stir.

Jacques expects a fight. When she looks up and meets his eyes, they are blank. She murmurs, "I can't."

It's weak. Anger surges, and he snaps, "Are you planning to move into this facility? You will go home, as will they." He jerks his head towards the unconscious girls. He's not sure what's wrong with her partner—there's no blood that he can see—but the other one is clearly finished as a Huntress.

She still hesitates. Glances over at her teammates. He's surprised when the blonde moves—not unconscious after all, then. She turns away, towards the wall, and says nothing. Weiss stands up, her eyes on the floor. He _hates_

"Stand up straight," he snaps. An orange-haired girl among the mourners glares at him, but says nothing. Weiss straightens and follows him onto the airship. She doesn't say a word the entire flight home.

The quiet lasts a long time. Long enough that he starts to wonder if perhaps she's taken after her mother after all, and becomes so inexplicably furious that he can't stand to look at her.

He should know better. She disappears again, this time leaving her bedroom strewn with fallen books and shattered glass.

Jacques shouts at James. Then he shouts at Whitley, and Willow, and Klein, and anyone else he can find. None of them will admit to knowing where she went. The rage destabilizes him. He wishes viciously that he'd left her to play the hero a year ago, to die to some Grimm and _rot. _The image lingers too long, and he

He goes to his office and sits, clutching the edge of his desk in white-knuckled hands. He has one daughter, now. He is _only _angry.


	4. Winter

**Alright! This is the fourth and final part of this story. I hope y'all enjoyed this wild ride as much as I enjoyed writing it, even if it played absolute havoc with my sleep cycle!**

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**Winter**

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Winter Schnee succeeds at everything she does—except for the things that matter most. Perhaps it comes down to education. She learns to fight under the best combat tutors in Atlas, but when it comes to trust, self-love, and affection, her mother's instruction is inconsistent at best.

She is taught that she is her own person. That power isn't everything, that honor and justice and truth have value, and that it isn't right to work yourself until you can put fingers through the cracks and root around inside. She is taught that she is safe and loved, that there is someone out there who will fight for her.

At age eleven, she learns how much easier it is to say those things than to stand by them. That there is too little of her father in her for him to respect her, and too much for her mother to love her. Lies can come from anywhere—she learns to ignore the words and watch the actions, and to never expect other people to protect her. She learns she doesn't need them to. Her father's fire is good for something, at least, and the best defense is an overwhelming offense.

Weiss and Whitley deserve better. Winter just isn't sure what better is supposed to look like. She knows what _not _to do, and learns that isn't enough.

It doesn't matter for Whitley, because he's not interested in letting her give him anything. He plays with Weiss, until they get older and start to fight instead, but Winter is the heir. By the time he learns to talk, Father has already taught him to be jealous.

For Weiss she tries with everything she has, and turns her childhood into a long list of failures. She's twelve, and Weiss seven, when she leaves Father's office with her resolve hanging by a thread. For an instant she wonders why she's even doing this when she knows he'll win in the end, and is so disgusted with herself that she stays locked in her room for the rest of the day.

That night, she decides to join the military. She has until she is seventeen—five years to learn to fight well enough to pass the entrance exam. It's plenty of time to prepare herself. Far too little to figure out what to say to the others. Her departure is less than a month away when she forces herself to break the news.

Whitley sneers and calls her a barbarian, and doesn't storm off fast enough to hide the tears in his eyes. And Weiss...

"Just _go away _then!"

A door slams. Winter stands on the other side, one hand raised. It drops slowly to her side. She turns and walks away.

Naturally, she's appointed as the leader of her team. Her three teammates are polite, professional, and skilled, everything she could have asked for. They will work together for four years, graduate at the top of their class, and go their separate ways. It won't ever occur to her that she might have missed something—only Weiss will wonder.

Father calls. He sends messages, then threats, and finally her cards stop working. It's sheer stubbornness that gets her through the next few weeks, as she learns to live off what seems to her like a pitiful stipend. Combined with free food and housing, it's better than some of her classmates had dared to hope for, and they aren't shy about telling her so. She's glad. The shame keeps her from calling him.

There's a dance. She goes with a boy who's handsome when he doesn't open his mouth, and for the first few hours it promises to be a forgettable evening. At around midnight, people suddenly stop dancing. She turns to face the source of the commotion and sees him standing near one of the doors. Weiss is trying not to hide behind him, even though she's never been anywhere this crowded and loud. Winter takes a deep breath, sips her cup of punch, and ignores him.

It doesn't work. He finds her within minutes, and her date stammers out a half-hearted excuse and flees the scene. "Weiss wanted to see you," he says, putting a hand on top of her sister's head. Winter examines the set of her jaw and knows he made her come here.

"She's missed you. I know you're eager to assert your independence, but if it comes at the cost of your sister's well-being—"

Winter's arm jerks, and all of a sudden she's holding an empty glass. There's a massive red stain on the front of his shirt. His mustache is dripping, and she isn't sure if she wants to laugh or scream. She's disinherited on the spot, with everyone watching. For an instant she feels so powerful and free that her head spins. Then she looks down, and she sees Weiss, and the guilt chokes her.

They don't speak for the rest of the year. Eventually Winter remembers the look on her little sister's face and finally realizes that she will never, ever make the first move. So, during break, she does the one thing she'd promised herself she wouldn't and goes home. With time, and effort, she pieces their relationship back together. It's not the same. Neither is Weiss.

From then on Winter visits whenever she can. As much as she hates herself for it, she can't help but savor the times when a mission runs long, or the General wants something from her, and she has to cancel. Sometimes at night, half-asleep, she wishes she could cut ties completely. Or rather, wishes she could still live with herself afterwards. If it weren't for Weiss... but it's not fair to resent her for being the only thing in that house worth returning to.

Sometimes she can't help it.

In her third year at Atlas Academy, Winter gets a call from Weiss. There's a new glint in her eyes, something hard and sharp, as she declares that she is going to Beacon Academy. Winter suppresses a wince. Two years, she tries to explain, isn't much time to learn to fight. She'll have to pass the entrance exams, and Beacon's are just as difficult as the ones in Atlas.

Weiss sets her jaw and says, "I don't care."

Winter isn't a kind teacher. She can't be, when they're working with so little time. And even if it feels cruel sometimes, she knows it's the best she can do. She's never been strong enough to keep both their heads above water, but at least now she can teach Weiss to swim on her own.

And swim she does. Winter is astonished to learn that yes, it _is_ possible to get from basic self-defense training up to Academy standards in two years—if one is driven and desperate enough to do almost nothing besides training. She offers her congratulations, and loses sleep wondering what changed while she was away.

They part ways again. Winter is, as always, swamped with work—but she tries to keep in touch. She's let the distance grow up between them twice now, and both times she's come back to a little sister that's half a stranger. She promises herself there won't be a third.

There is. She touches down in Beacon Academy's courtyard and greets a relaxed, smiling Weiss. There's a pang of resentment that this madhouse full of strangers has made her happy in a way Winter never could—but despite that, it's the best she's felt in a long time.

A week later, and it's gone.

Winter has lost people before. It comes with the territory, particularly in the army where most of the rank and file don't have strong auras. Ugly, but unavoidable.

Weiss is barely eighteen, not even graduated yet, and Winter can't do a damn thing to help.

It's the first time she argues with the General's orders. He's genuinely sorry to do it—she can see it in his face. But he's also haggard and worn and critically low on trustworthy officers, and how is she supposed to refuse when all of Atlas, the entire _world, _hangs in the balance? (She will look back on this thought, later, and her bitter laugh will frighten Whitley.)

So she calls from Mistral, and an already difficult conversation becomes impossible. The words she needs to say curdle on her tongue. Weiss is listless, which frightens her more than any amount of screaming or crying or smashing things would have. The call ends. Her work consumes her. Perversely, the endless crisis is much easier to manage than a single conversation with her sister.

Winter surfaces again only when the General orders everyone back to Atlas. She doesn't argue, even though there's an uneasiness stirring in the back of her mind. It's been hell, to be sure, but she can _see _the results of their work—the tide of Grimm is slowing, the people of Mistral are warming to them. Leaving feels like throwing it away.

When she returns, he tells her that Weiss is gone, and all other concerns become irrelevant. At any other time she would be glad to hear it. Now, after she's spent months in Mistral facing the current crisis and nearly died several times _despite _years of experience... Winter adds this newest failure to the list.

She can't go looking. Not when all of Mantle is on the verge of collapse, and discontent is spreading like a plague to the floating city. Even when she is so riddled with hidden tension that she can hardly sleep, her work doesn't suffer—she's always been very good at her job. This is the first time she wishes she wasn't.

It won't be the last.


End file.
